The line of public guarantees launched by the Government through the ICO will also have to accommodate electricity companies among its main beneficiaries. Not because their financial situation is in danger or their liquidity is at risk - as established in the financing plan - but as compensation for the loss of income that they will suffer due to the wave of suspensions of energy contracts for SMEs and self-employed that the Executive promotes. for all those penalized for the paralysis of economic activity.

This is how it appears in the fine print of Royal Decree-Law 11/2020, approved last Tuesday, which adopts urgent complementary measures in the social and economic sphere to deal with the coronavirus pandemic. The measure extends to the group of electricity and gas distributors - a market that Iberdrola, Endesa and Naturgy control for the most part - to the energy distributors that manage the gas networks and pipes and to the companies that supply butane, for which reason they also Groups such as Repsol or Cepsa could benefit from the measure.

The size of the guarantee must in any case coincide with the amount in which the income of each company has decreased as a result of the emergency measure approved by the Government. The rule itself states that, once the alarm period is suspended, the client who has benefited from the measure will have to pay the electricity company the debt contracted in this period for a period of six months.

The rule allows SMEs and the self-employed to suspend their supply contracts or reduce the gas flow or the contracted electrical power without paying any penalty. Once the alarm state is canceled, the customer has three months to request the reactivation of the electricity or gas supply, which will have to take place in a maximum of five days. The self-employed and SMEs that benefit from the suspension of the contracts will not be able to change suppliers until the "regularization" of the debt contracted with the energy company is complete.

On the other hand, the norm includes the prohibition to cut the energy supply to any home during the duration of the alarm state, even if there is a non-payment of the domestic bills. The measure extends to more than 18 million first homes in Spain, although sources in the electricity sector do not believe that massive returns of receipts will occur in the coming weeks.

In parallel, the royal decree law establishes the creation of a credit in the next General State Budgets to cover the drop in income that the electricity and gas systems will suffer during this year due to the drop in demand. This item will be aimed at offsetting the fixed costs incurred by the different companies operating in the market in order to avoid financial deficits at the end of the year.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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  • Spain
  • Naturgy
  • State's general budgets
  • economy

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